Back before Jinmyo took the oh-so-sensible action of correcting this node's title, it was "a capella." No big deal, right? One letter difference can't change "a cappella" that much!
Well, it does. In English, a desert is very different from a dessert, isn't it? But I digress. I don't ordinarily node spelling errors, but for this one, I had to. You see, I learned this particular mistake the hard way: I made 200 posters for the Mental Notes, a college a cappella group, and handed them to the president of the group, who spoke Italian. She laughed for a moment, until she realized how many I'd printed. It is amusing--the literal translation of "a capella" is "of (or with) a hat". The other common typo, "a capela", means "of/with capela", which is a type of pasta (think capellini, which are small capelas).
To clarify:
- The Village People are "a capella".
- The cast of Iron Chef is "a capela", and if wearing their hats, also "a capella".
- The Mental Notes are "a cappella" unless there are hats or pasta onstage... which happens more often than you'd think.
Many thanks to Jinmyo for going through the hassle of changing the stripes on this tyger.